Rudy Apffel

Czerny Op 740 #30, 3 Versions

My arrangements of #30 have the principle aim of shortening and simplifying Czerny’s study to make it more easily mastered, effective in ballet class, and, though “easy,” a useful technical exercise for an accompanist. For a literal “one-pager” I could have wrapped things up with a cadence at Czerny’s m 16 and a repeat sign, but, as is often the case, Czerny’s second page is more interesting than his first and well worth the trouble of working up.

This is a performance of my shortcut arrangement of #30 for which I provide a score. I slow the tempo and use Czerny’s mm 1-32 to create a ternary piece. More importantly, I drop the RH first beat of the first four measures, recasting Czerny’s endless stream of couplet thirds into measure-long units initiated with a rest. I do this not just for facilitation but because such a piece of music--a 2/4 with a silent first beat in the RH, a “hesitation”--is very effective for combinations that have one count/step per measure. I fill out the LH a little, and for convenience I notate the RH in 16ths (you can play them as sharply as you like). But the most high-handed simplification is thinning the RH thirds, dropping every other lower note. This considerably softens the hard edge of Czerny’s writing, as well as the technical challenge. For the most part a fingering of 3-1 now works for the RH thirds instead of Czerny’s 4-2. By the way, instead of simplifying, I complicated Czerny’s mm 25-32 in the interest of highlighting the increased harmonic motion. It will be noticed that in performance I repeat the whole of my AA’ section before going to B in order to get the wanted 64 bars of music; structurally the piece works better without the repeat.

The most convenient formulas for recasting #30 in triple time start with the LH: add a beat to each measure, making it 3/4, or add an eighth to each beat, making it 6/8. Then figure out how you want to distribute the RH material through the bar to get the kind of triple-time piece you want.

This is my performance of my 1st Version of #30 reshaped as a 6/8 and extended for use as a centre petit allegro. I provide a score. I’ve extended the material with repeats and key changes, as well as a long coda constructed from Czerny’s closing material (mm 65-89). My score doesn’t show the repeats and key changes. The “hesitation” of my 2/4 arrangement becomes “hurried.”

This is my performance of my 1st Version of #30 reshaped as a 3/4 and extended for use as a grand allegro (of the ponderous type). I provide a score. As with my 2nd Version I’ve extended and varied the piece with repeats and key changes, but my score is only of the basic material.